The scenes in The Moor's Last Sigh describing Aurora Zogoiby's paintings and her art-making process provide a window into understanding Rushdie's views on art, both as a personal, inward reflection and as an outwardly-oriented carrier of cultural meaning. In particular, these scenes reveals Rushdie's understanding of the problematic relationship between these two aspects of art. They answer the question: "If art is both a personal reflection on one's life and a means of communicating particular ideas within a culture, which of these functions is fundamental to art?" or,"Which of these two functions makes the other, and art itself, possible?"
The description of Aurora's first painting and its circumstances is a powerful indication of Rushdie's stance on this issue. The painting, a mural that captures "the great swarm of being itself", emerges out of a period of confinement in the wake of her mother's death, punishment for stealing her father's elephant trinkets. The description of the painting itself lingers over the historical and literary significations of the painting quite deliberately. We are presented a web of divergent yet partially overlapping significations, a palimpsest of India's diverse literary and cultural past. The painting's luxurious details have been woven together to communicate a particular message to particular audience: a religious experience to a godless audience, by Aurora's own admission. The narrator himself reflects this position by explicitly treating Aurora's paintings as polemical objects. "In a way these were polemical pictures...an attempt to create the romantic myth of the plural, hybrid nation...So yes there was didacticism [in her art]" (227).
Towards the end of the description of Aurora's first painting, however, we encounter another image of art, one that is often shrouded by its more obvious social function. The many historical and literary significations of this painting are shown to be subsumed within Aurora's broader treatment of motherhood, particularly the loss of her own mother. The painting many images, after all, are crowned by her mother head. "The room was her act of mourning" (61). This is a very clear indication of Rushdie's stance on the question I began with. Even though art makes use of different histories and literary traditions to signify certain ideas within a particular history and literary tradition, this impersonal, aesthetic engagement with the world is rooted within the personal history of its author. Each author, with his or her unique personal history, is capable of engaging with the world in wholly original ways. In fact, without this personal history, any kind of original perspective on the world is completely out of the question.
This is primarily why Rushdie portrays society's attempts at categorizing Aurora's art with such disdain. Because Aurora's art, like any genuine art, comes from such a deeply personal space, any attempt to categorize her art as "Christian art" or her as a "female, Christian artist" is so problematic and disingenuous. Society, with its own privileged set of cultural commitments, can only view Aurora's art as a polemical object. Its reaction to Aurora's art will also be colored by this parochial view. However, as suggested above, we can only truly understand Aurora's intended message through the lens of her personal history. This is why the cultural categorization of art is an act of violence against both the artwork and the artist.
The description of Aurora's first painting and its circumstances is a powerful indication of Rushdie's stance on this issue. The painting, a mural that captures "the great swarm of being itself", emerges out of a period of confinement in the wake of her mother's death, punishment for stealing her father's elephant trinkets. The description of the painting itself lingers over the historical and literary significations of the painting quite deliberately. We are presented a web of divergent yet partially overlapping significations, a palimpsest of India's diverse literary and cultural past. The painting's luxurious details have been woven together to communicate a particular message to particular audience: a religious experience to a godless audience, by Aurora's own admission. The narrator himself reflects this position by explicitly treating Aurora's paintings as polemical objects. "In a way these were polemical pictures...an attempt to create the romantic myth of the plural, hybrid nation...So yes there was didacticism [in her art]" (227).
Towards the end of the description of Aurora's first painting, however, we encounter another image of art, one that is often shrouded by its more obvious social function. The many historical and literary significations of this painting are shown to be subsumed within Aurora's broader treatment of motherhood, particularly the loss of her own mother. The painting many images, after all, are crowned by her mother head. "The room was her act of mourning" (61). This is a very clear indication of Rushdie's stance on the question I began with. Even though art makes use of different histories and literary traditions to signify certain ideas within a particular history and literary tradition, this impersonal, aesthetic engagement with the world is rooted within the personal history of its author. Each author, with his or her unique personal history, is capable of engaging with the world in wholly original ways. In fact, without this personal history, any kind of original perspective on the world is completely out of the question.
This is primarily why Rushdie portrays society's attempts at categorizing Aurora's art with such disdain. Because Aurora's art, like any genuine art, comes from such a deeply personal space, any attempt to categorize her art as "Christian art" or her as a "female, Christian artist" is so problematic and disingenuous. Society, with its own privileged set of cultural commitments, can only view Aurora's art as a polemical object. Its reaction to Aurora's art will also be colored by this parochial view. However, as suggested above, we can only truly understand Aurora's intended message through the lens of her personal history. This is why the cultural categorization of art is an act of violence against both the artwork and the artist.
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